The figures.
Wilm Hosenfeld
The German officer who began as an ardent admirer of the party but came to his senses when confronted with the horrors in Poland. His Wehrmacht uniform became a shield he used to save Jews, including the 'Pianist.'
Jacques Piccard
From the highest reaches of the atmosphere to the mysterious, darkest depths of the Mariana Trench. The adventurer who dove to the deepest point on Earth, proving that his family simply had no limits.
Jacqueline Kahanoff
The beautiful, bold intellectual from Cairo who redefined Israeli identity. As a standard-bearer for Mediterraneanism, she fought social injustice and broke new ground in thought.
Zehara Levitov
The first female fighter pilot, carrying within her the grief of losing her beloved Shmulik, who had fallen in battle; their story of love and loss became the defining myth of the 1948 generation.
Zelda
The mysterious ultra-Orthodox woman from Jerusalem who turned the world of Israeli poetry upside down with her enchanting candor. How did her quiet, profound poems become enduring classics and the tangible symbol of Holocaust Remembrance Day?
Zelig Eugen Soskin
The agronomist who proved to Herzl that a national vision is built on science, precise calculation, and working the land, and conceived the “small farms” model that gave rise to Nahariya. How did five dunams and growing vegetables in salt water at the Dead Sea spark an agricultural revolution that earned him the Israel Prize?
Zalman David Levontin
The young Chabad Hasid who understood that Zionism could not be built on vision and hoes alone, but also needed a sound bank balance and capital investment. The man who founded the Anglo-Palestine Bank and raised the substantial funds that made it possible to build a state from scratch.
Zerach Barnett
The man who crossed the sea back and forth, sold all his property in London, and invested every penny in redeeming the land. The tireless pioneer who turned thorn fields into Meah Shearim and the "mother of the colonies," Petah Tikva.
Haviva Reik
The fighter who embarked on a suicide mission behind Nazi enemy lines for the sake of her tormented brothers and sisters. She parachuted into the unknown in Slovakia, organized the uprising, and fought bravely until she fell.
The Holiday of Love
The day Israelite girls danced in the vineyards was born not of sweet romance, but of trauma, civil war, and division. The shocking historical truth about the Hebrew holiday that turned from a day of national reconciliation into a festival of love.
José Pepe Mujica
He gave up the magnificent presidential palace, drove around in a battered Beetle, and donated most of his salary to people in need. From a guerrilla fighter who spent many years in prison to a modest leader who broke all the rules of the political game.
Haim and Miriam Yaffe
The remarkable Galilean dynasty that produced fighters, rabbis, and farmers who became a living legend. The story of a clan with deep roots in the Land of Israel that inspired Meir Shalev's masterful novel Fontanelle.
Chaim Hissin
The taciturn, unpretentious Bilu pioneer who rode his donkey between Gedera and Rishon LeZion, and went from frustrated farmer to the beloved, devoted doctor of the pioneers of the First and Second Aliyahs.
Hemda Ben-Yehuda
The woman behind the reviver of the Hebrew language, she was a brilliant writer and the first Hebrew fashion journalist. With wit and grace, she coined new words and led a genuine cultural revolution.
Hannah Meisel Shohat
The determined agronomist who rebelled against the gender conventions of her time and founded the Young Women’s Farm to make working the land a liberating force for Hebrew women.
Hanna Maron
Theater's Guinness World Record-holder overcame a devastating terrorist attack and returned to light up the stage. Eight decades of creative work and a hundred roles made her the undisputed queen of Hebrew acting.
Jan and Antonina Żabiński
The animal cages at the Warsaw Zoo became the boldest hiding place of World War II. Right under the Germans' noses, the zoo director and his wife turned it into a refuge for hundreds of Jews
Yigal Mossinson
A Palmach fighter, a man of secrets, and a brilliant inventor who drew on the worlds of espionage to create the legendary Hasamba. The creator who stirred generations of imaginations with a single secret society in the Electric Cave.
Yehuda Antebi
The educational leader who kindled a fire of knowledge in his students' eyes and shaped generations of people of action and intellect. The story of the teachers' teacher who turned educational management into an art and a supreme national mission.
Yehudit Yehezkeli-Galili
The woman who worked in the shadows and took part in daring intelligence operations and arms smuggling. Under assumed identities and a heavy veil of secrecy, she served the country in its most dangerous places.
Judith Montefiore
The daughter of a wealthy aristocratic family who chose arduous journeys, illness, and danger on the roads of the ancient East. Alongside her husband Moses, she crisscrossed the Land of Israel and invested her fortune in building the Jewish community.
Yehoshua Hankin
The man who redeemed hundreds of thousands of dunams in the Jezreel Valley and the coastal plain through complex and dangerous deals, dedicating every penny and every breath to the map of the state in the making.
Yehoshua Yellin
The daring young Jerusalemite who broke beyond the Old City walls, bought land in Motza, and established a pioneering farm there. The man who fought for the dignity of the Hebrew language and paved the way for the daring move beyond the walls.
Joshua Margolin
The educator and lover of nature who became the beloved "Uncle Joshua" to generations of children, and laid the foundations for a culture of environmental protection in Israel.
Yoel Moshe Salomon
The learned scholar who refused to stay behind Jerusalem's walls and went to see whether birds sang above the Yarkon marshes. The entrepreneur, printer, and visionary who dared to buy the lands of Umm Labes and lay the foundation for Petah Tikva.
Yuval Ne'eman
The mysterious man and brilliant physicist who revealed the fundamental particles of nature while also working on national security. A polymath who led Israel's nuclear program, space research, and intelligence services.
Yohanan Ratner
The architect who designed the National Institutions building and was a brilliant officer and a candidate for chief of staff, and the poet Rachel’s secret and adored lover.
Yona Wallach
An uninhibited creative force who moved between total madness and rare poetic genius, shaking Hebrew culture to its core. The story of a wild aristocrat who crossed every conceivable boundary and remained a mesmerizing enigma until her final day.
Yonatan Ratosh
The brilliant poet who sought to sever the bonds of exile, erase the concept of "Jewishness," and recreate the Hebrew nation. The leader of the Canaanite movement, whose books and poetry sparked an intellectual storm that refuses to die down.
Joseph Dhu Nuwas
In the heart of the Arabian Peninsula, centuries before Islam, a warrior king with ornate sidelocks on his cheeks ruled. The forgotten story of Yemen's powerful Jewish kingdom and the daring king who led it.
Yosef Zaltzman
One of the founders of the Kinneret group, he was murdered in an ambush in the colony's fields and became the group's first fallen member, whose blood bound it forever to the soil of the valley.
Joseph Haim Brenner
Stormy, tormented, unfiltered, and unwilling to ingratiate himself - the writer who tore away the masks of Zionist society at the height of its innocence. Meet the singular creator whose turbulent life was cut short in a brutal massacre that shook the entire Jewish community in the Land of Israel.
Yosef Yekutieli
The man who conceived the idea of the Maccabiah and personally measured the Biblical marathon route from Shiloh to Rosh HaAyin, to prove that the spirit of Jewish sport predated even ancient Greece.
Yosef Rivlin
'Rabbi Yoshe, the neighborhood builder,' who feared neither wild animals, robbers, nor lonely nights outside Jerusalem's walls. The messianic leader who founded 16 new neighborhoods and forever changed the map of the eternal city.
Joop Westerweel
The Dutch educator who established a daring smuggling network that crossed borders all the way to neutral Spain. He regarded Jewish youth as his pupils and sacrificed his life for their free future.
Yehezkel Danin
The entrepreneur who abandoned the Diaspora surname Suchowolski, drew the first lot in Ahuzat Bayit, and established a Hebrew kindergarten. The pioneer who understood that a new land demanded a new language, advanced Hebrew education, and urban roots.
Yechiel Michel Steinberg
The snowstorm that destroyed Jerusalem's rooftops led to an architectural revolution brought straight from the Templer builders. The story of a practical man who learned the secrets of European construction and changed the skyline of the Land of Israel forever.
Yelizaveta Feodorovna
A Russian princess murdered by the Bolsheviks, whose last wish brought her to her eternal rest on the slopes of Jerusalem's Mount of Olives.
Yael Rom
She was the first woman to break the glass ceiling and complete the IDF flight course; as a transport pilot, she flew the paratroopers to Mitla for Operation Kadesh.
Yaakov (Jacob) Ohayon
The immigrant from Morocco who reported as a recruit to the foremost front line of the War of Independence and fought with supreme bravery in the battles of the Negev until he fell defending the land.
Jacob Elhanan Litvinsky
The bold entrepreneur who headed a dynasty that turned sand dunes into thriving cities and acquired land from Jaffa to Samaria. The fascinating story of a family of pioneering businesspeople who left an indelible mark on the map of settlement in the Land of Israel.
Jacob Bekenstein
The modest Israeli physicist who dared to challenge Stephen Hawking and discovered the laws of black hole thermodynamics. The scientist who deciphered the secrets of cosmic entropy and left an everlasting mark on the study of the universe.
Yaakov Granek ("The Blond Dov")
Lehi’s daring operations commander, who terrorized the British with face-to-face raids until he fell in an assault on the Iraq Suwaydan outpost in the Negev.
Yitzhak Epstein
The modest Galilean teacher who dared to speak aloud at the Zionist Congress about the unsettling truth of “the hidden question.” A devoted linguist who dedicated his life to Hebrew education and foresaw the national conflict long before anyone else.
Isaac Leib Goldberg
The quiet Zionist philanthropist who opened his wallet and personally financed the purchase of the JNF's first plot of land. The man who acquired the land on Mount Scopus and redeemed land without seeking any glory or title for himself.
Yisrael Bak
A pioneer of Hebrew printing who grew wheat and established Hebrew agriculture on Mount Meron decades before the First Aliyah. The story of a leader forgotten by official history, yet one who laid the foundations of true pioneering.
Chaeronea
Ancient Greece's elite unit, made up of pairs of lovers who swore to fight to their last drop of blood. The story of the warriors' heroism and absolute sacrifice, commemorated by the giant lion statue after the historic battle.
Leah Abushdid
She was called "the fairest of women" and rebuffed Itamar Ben-Avi's desperate courtship until he threatened to end his life, in a tempestuous romance torn between ancient tradition and a new language of love.
Lea Gottlieb
The woman who survived the inferno in Europe with her two daughters and turned a modest dream into the Gottex fashion empire. How did a determined Israeli designer conquer the world's most prestigious runways with swimwear?
Leah Goldberg
She called herself "not a beautiful woman" and suffered through unrequited, unfulfilled loves, yet transformed that tormenting loneliness into the heights of Hebrew poetry.
Leah Tannenbaum
The young woman from the ultra-Orthodox world who captured the hearts of the region's most powerful Muslim leaders. Her tumultuous life story moved between forbidden loves, centers of power, and extraordinary political complexity.
Leopold Socha
The convicted criminal from Lviv who found his true calling deep in the city's sewers. This man from the margins of society risked everything to keep a group of Jews alive for months.
Leopold von Mildenstein
A senior SS officer tours the Land of Israel, becomes enthusiastic about the pioneer settlements and even publishes sympathetic articles about them. The scandalous and bizarre story of the Nazi officer who, for one brief moment, found common ground with the Zionist idea.
Lord Israel Ziv
The lone refugee who built a multi-billion-pound empire through the Marks & Spencer chain, and chose to devote his entire fortune to founding WIZO, the Weizmann Institute, and the Tel Mond bloc.
Lawrence Oliphant and Alice
The British MP and his aristocratic wife, who fell in love with the land, helped the settlers and tied their fate to Naftali Herz Imber, the author of "Hatikvah"
Madame de Sévigné
She turned her personal letters to her daughter into a fascinating, vivid historical account of the French royal court. A 17th-century "one-woman newspaper" who exposed all the gossip, plots, and intrigues at Louis XIV's court.
Meir Dizengoff
The man who rode his white mare across the desolate dunes of the Jaffa shore, and lived to see the dream of "Ahuzat Bayit" become the bustling first Hebrew city.
Meir Rotberg
The man who sought neither honor nor authority, but believed with all his heart that simple agricultural labor was the true path to human redemption and moral betterment.
Magda Goebbels
She was considered a model of Aryan beauty and the First Lady of the Reich, but concealed dark secrets from her past. The woman behind the Nazi propaganda monster, who chose blind loyalty to Satan until the bitter end.
Magda and Andre Trocme
The pastor who turned an entire French village into a moral fortress and a refuge for countless people fleeing the Nazi oppressor. Under his leadership, the entire community rallied as one to ensure that not a single Jewish child was handed over.
Magda Lupescu
The woman who turned the head of the King of Romania and led him to give up his throne for her, time and again. A tempestuous affair, political intrigue, and an international scandal that tore apart an entire kingdom over forbidden love.
Modi Alon
The commander of the first fighter squadron, who personally shot down enemy aircraft over Tel Aviv alongside Ezer Weizman, saving the country in its early days.
Mihai, King of Romania
At an age when most children play with toys, he was forced to lead a kingdom torn between Hitler and Stalin. The astonishing story of Romania's last king, the boy who dared to defy the Nazi regime of terror.
Michael Halpern
The dreamer who first raised the Israeli flag and fought to establish a mounted Jewish army, at a time when everyone around him thought he was hopelessly eccentric.
Michael Polak
The mysterious businessman who understood that a country is built not with words, but by pouring concrete and building factories and ironworks. The modest industrialist who founded Nesher in Haifa and laid the foundations for all the infrastructure of the young State of Israel.
Mira (Miriam) Ben-Ari
The brave radio operator of Nitzanim who refused to evacuate, shot the Egyptian officer at point-blank range, and fell to ensure the honor of the kibbutz's fighters.
Melania Karlovna
The Christian noblewoman who crossed every social boundary when she chose to marry the poet Shaul Tchernichovsky.
Mania Shohat
The fiery revolutionary from Russia who conceived the cooperative commune, founded "Bar-Giora" and "Hashomer," and led underground arms operations that shaped the Hebrew defense force.
Mordechai Maklef
At just nine years old, he witnessed the horrific massacre of his family in their home in Motza. His personal ordeal shaped him into the youngest chief of staff in the history of the IDF.
Maria Rosetta Shapira (Miriam Harry)
The daughter of Moses Wilhelm Shapira, she wrote under the pen name Miriam Harry and described her childhood in the Old City of Jerusalem in her work.
Miriam Baratz
The pioneer who paved the way for women in Degania's cowshed, and became the first woman to marry and establish a family in the "mother of the kibbutzim and collective settlements."
Marcel Janco
The boy who rebelled against the conventions of world art, founded the "Dada" movement in Zurich, and built himself a home on the Carmel coast. How did one of the pioneers of modern art turn the ruins of Ein Hod into a thriving artists' village?
Moshe Abarbanel
The visionary Tel Avivian who brought the magic of silent films to the city's sand dunes and founded the legendary Eden Cinema. The man who replaced streetlamps with the light of the projector and taught the Hebrew community to dream before the big screen.
Moshe Greidinger
The Haifa entrepreneur who started with a modest cinema and sparked a family dynasty that conquered the country's theaters one by one. How did one man's vision become an international cinema empire that brought Hollywood magic into every home?
Moses Wilhelm Shapira
The Jerusalem antiquities dealer who stirred the world with his discoveries and left behind an eternal mystery: was his greatest forgery actually genuine?
Moshe Novomeysky
The engineer from Siberia who looked at the still waters of the Dead Sea and saw in them a gold mine of essential natural resources. The man who deciphered secret reports, battled British bureaucracy, and built the potash works that brought life to the wilderness.
Moshe Smilansky
The man of the soil from Rehovot, who held the plow handle in one hand and the writer’s pen in the other. The author who left us The Family of the Soil and spent his life fighting for good neighborly relations, justice, and Jewish labor.
The Sturman Family
The matriarch of a dynasty that lost a husband, sons, and a grandson in Israel's security campaigns, and remained an enduring symbol of steadfastness and endless sacrifice in the Harod Valley.
Noah Naftolsky
The taciturn, wandering farmer, regarded by those around him as eccentric, whose sensitive soul captivated the poet Rachel and stayed with her all her life.
Nahum Wilbush
The visionary engineer who founded the Shemen oil factory and the first flour mills, and laid the foundations for the modern industrial revolution in the Land of Israel.
Nechama Pukhachevsky
The woman who rebelled against the conventions of the colony, fought for equal rights for women, and wrote daring Hebrew literature. The first Eretz-Israeli woman writer refused to remain on the margins of history and paved the way for all women.
Nissim Gini
The ten-year-old boy who served as a messenger between battle positions in the besieged Jewish Quarter, and became the youngest fallen soldier in the history of the Israel Defense Forces.
Nicholas Winton
The man who could have stayed comfortably in London, but chose to act and save a whole world. On his own initiative, he put hundreds of children on trains in a rescue operation that became legendary.
Netiva Ben-Yehuda
The clear-voiced fighter who brought the language of the Palmach into the heart of Israeli culture. With no barriers and no filters, she fought for the country's independence and for the spoken language.
Natan Ikar
Behind an unusual, solitary gravestone in the Kinneret cemetery lies the story of a Zionist bourgeois who could not bridge the gap between his dream and harsh reality, and was broken by it.
Selma Lagerlöf
The renowned Swedish author of The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, whose journeys and special connections with the Land of Israel deeply influenced her.
Ada Fishman
The uncompromising revolutionary who refused to accept women's inferior status in the world of work. She founded an entire community and fought on the political front for equality and social justice.
Ezra the Scribe
The Hebrew script, public Torah reading, and the definition of Jewish identity once looked entirely different. Then one leader returned from the Babylonian exile, changed the order of things, and shaped the character of the people for generations to come.
Amos Yarkoni
The Bedouin fighter who volunteered for the IDF, overcame severe injuries, and became a legendary tracker and the celebrated commander of the Shaked Reconnaissance Unit.
Akiva Yosef Schlesinger
A Jerusalem zealot or a Zionist visionary who anticipated Herzl by decades? The answer is far more complicated. He was an extraordinary rabbi who lived in two seemingly irreconcilable worlds at once and was persecuted for it.
Paula Ben-Gurion
The strong, direct, and sharp-witted woman who stood like an impregnable wall behind the nation's leader. Her tempestuous personality made her a symbol, to the point that some called him "the husband of the Prime Minister's wife."
Felix de Menashe
The baron and banker from Alexandria who acquired thousands of dunams in the center of the country to build a new Hebrew settlement there. The story of Egypt's Jewish moneyed aristocracy, which laid the foundations for what we know today as Tel Hashomer.
Feng-Shan Ho
'The Chinese Schindler' who stood up to international pressure and issued rescue visas to anyone who asked in Vienna. Thanks to his signature, thousands of Jews found refuge in the Far East and escaped the Nazi inferno.
Pinchas Rutenberg
A daring Russian revolutionary and confidant who was involved in a political execution became the man who brought electricity to the Land of Israel. The turbulent life of the "Old Man of Naharayim," who conquered the darkness and harnessed the Jordan and Yarmouk rivers to his vision.
Frederick Douglass
Born as another man's property, he secretly learned to read and write and became the moral voice of an entire nation. The slave who escaped his chains and conquered stages around the world as a brilliant orator fought uncompromisingly for freedom.
Franz van der Horn
The "strange" Dutchman who arrived in the Land of Israel on foot, fought at Tel Hai, drained swamps and carved a path to the Iyon Stream waterfalls - and whose mother was discovered to have been born Jewish only decades after his death.
Tzvi Yanai
The boy with no formal education who emerged from poverty and war to become the country's intellectual authority. The man who unlocked the secrets of science and thought and brought them into every home in Israel with a singular talent.
Konrad Schick
From a humble cuckoo-clock maker in Germany to a leading architect and archaeologist who transformed the appearance of Jerusalem beyond its walls.
Clorinda Minor
A leader of a Christian sect who believed that the coming of Jesus was bound up with the Jews' return to the Land of Israel, and her connection to a writer and a famous story
Kariel Gardosh (Dosh)
From an almost-anonymous Holocaust survivor to the creator of "Srulik," the boy in the iconic Israeli tembel hat who became a symbol of our shared identity. The cartoonist who fearlessly lashed out at Israel's leadership and drew reality with a bitter, incisive smile.